Online report of the Progressive Review. For 51 years, the news while there's still time to do something about it.

November 28, 2012

Happy Birthday, Jimi Hendrix

Smoking Gun- Since Jimi Hendrix would have turned 70 today, it seems like a good time to reprise one of our favorite documents from the rock star’s U.S. Army personnel file.

Hendrix was booted from the armed services in 1962 after 13 desultory months as a private stationed in Fort Campbell, Kentucky. In a May 1962 statement recommending that “Hendrix be eliminated from the service…as expeditious as possible,” Army Captain Gilbert Batchman delivered a withering assessment of the young soldier.

Hendrix, Batchman noted, was poorly motivated, had no regards for regulations, ignored supervisors, and was a “habitual offender” when in came to nightly bed checks. Even worse, Army brass suspected that Hendrix “was taking dope,” though a medical exam proved negative.

And then there was that guitar.

“Pvt Hendrix plays a musical instrument during his off duty hours, or so he says,” Batchman wrote. “This is one of his faults, because his mind apparently cannot function while performing duties and thinking about his guitar.”

Oh, and Hendrix was also once “apprehended masturbating" in a latrine, according to the Army records.

SAY IT AGAIN, SAM

PLAY IT AGAIN, SAM

Your editor has been a musician for many decades. He started the first band his Quaker school ever had and played drums with bands up until 1980 when he switched to stride piano. He had his own band until the mid-1990s and has played with the New Sunshine Jazz Band, Hill City Jazz Band, Not So Modern Jazz Band and the Phoenix Jazz Band.

ABOUT THE EDITOR

The Review is edited by Sam Smith, who covered Washington under nine presidents, has edited the Progressive Review for 49 years, wrote four books, been published in five anthologies, helped to start six organizations (including the DC Humanities Council, the national Green Party and the DC Statehood Party), was a plaintiff in three successful class action suits, served as a Coast Guard officer, and played in jazz bands for four decades.MORE